Pleas and queues
When the rap star Eve posed for paparazzi in February carrying a multicolored Louis Vuitton “Speedy” bag three months before it arrived in stores, she set in motion a fashion frenzy. After months of teasing on billboards and in glossy magazine pages, women were mad for the peppy new print, a brightly hued LV logo pattern sprinkled across a white canvas background. Eve’s bag, according to Louis Vuitton representatives, did not actually belong to her; she’d borrowed it for toting and gloating around New York’s fashion week. But when it came to owning the $1,330 bag, the reps claimed, Eve, like anyone else, was forced to put her name on the dreaded list.
If she did, she probably didn’t have to wait long, since celebrities seem to zoom straight to the top of waiting lists. Magazine editors too.
But mere mortals who lust after spring’s “it” bag are pretty much out of luck. The waiting list at the Louis Vuitton store on Rodeo Drive is 2,500 names long ... with no guarantees.
If it’s a Roberto Cavalli cheongsam minidress you’re after, you’re too late. So many Neiman Marcus customers are waiting to wriggle their slender hips into the $3,700 dresses, the pieces were sold before they ever hit the sales floor.
At the Celine store in Beverly Hills, 75 women are on hold for the $260 “gaya brass” chandelier earrings that were featured on every model in the line’s spring runway show. And the Italian label Miss Sixty is still scrambling to meet the demand for its thrashed denim cargo pants. The label’s spring ad campaign, photographed by Mario Testino, generated a list of 700 names for the jeans at the company’s three U.S. stores, with actress Chloe Sevigny at the top.
Waiting lists have become a rite of shopping for the fashion-obsessed. With photos of runway collections posted on the Internet just hours after designers take their bows, competition for next season’s hot item can be fierce. The savviest shoppers do their fashion footwork months ahead of time; they understand that waiting lists often begin to form before an item has even gone into production. (Customers began calling Louis Vuitton about its new bags, which come in several cartoonish prints designed by Japanese pop artist Takashi Murakami, the day after they were shown on the runway in Paris last October.)
“Finding out there’s a waiting list for something just makes me want it more,” said Kristin Young, West Coast retail editor of Women’s Wear Daily. “It’s the thrill of the hunt. Yeah, you don’t have instant gratification, but you know if you do get the item, you’ll be one of the few people out there who will have it.”
Which explains why, in the middle of her wedding weekend last month, Young dropped everything to fetch a pair of $85 rubber flip-flops with daintily curved kitten heels. Before the Sigerson Morrison shoes had even shipped from Italy, they had already been featured in the New York Times, Vogue, Marie Claire, Allure and on the “Today” show and “The View.” There were 720 people on a waiting list at the Sigerson Morrison boutique in Manhattan, and another 250 on a list at the store here.
“I asked if they could hold them, and they said no,” Young said. “Their recommendation was for me to get there that day, so I stopped everything and picked them up.” At the same time, Young wondered, “Why don’t they just make more?”
“We didn’t expect them to be such a big hit,” said Barbara Parisotto, public relations manager for the New York-based shoe label. “Obviously, if we had known, we would have placed a much bigger order. But by the time we started getting all the press, it was too late. The shoes were already in production in Italy and we couldn’t just say, ‘Bump it up another 4,000.’ ”
A waiting list for the $169 Miss Sixty cargo jeans was started at the South Coast Plaza store soon after the spring ad campaign hit magazines in late January, though the jeans were not delivered until March. “When they did come in, it was a feeding frenzy” at all three of the label’s stores, said Andrew Pollard, director of sales and marketing for the label. Within three hours, he said, each store sold out of its initial shipment of 50 pairs. “That prompted us to order more. Then we shipped the second lot, and the same thing happened. Someone was selling a pair on EBay for $400,” Pollard said. (There have also been EBay listings for the Murakami bags and for the Sigerson Morrison flip-flops.)
In today’s soft economy, “retailers are not in a position to stock a lot of inventory, so they are constantly going to be running out of merchandise,” said Marshal Cohen, senior industry analyst for the NPD Group, a market information firm.
But some followers of fashion aren’t so easily persuaded. “To me, a waiting list feels like a brilliant PR move,” said Kim France, editor in chief of Lucky, a magazine about shopping. “The minute there’s a waiting list for something, I don’t want it anymore, because it means it’s going to be photographed on a million celebs, there’s going to be a knockoff, and it’s going to be super-duper over pretty soon.”
Although France wouldn’t buy a Louis Vuitton Murakami bag, she did feature one in her magazine, acknowledging that her readers probably are the sort who put themselves on waiting lists. “I understand the fever,” she said, referring to the bags, which cost from $360 for a mini size to $1,930 for a travel bag. “If you were a drug addict, it would be kind of a jones. You want to get that thing everyone is getting, but at the same time, you have to respect yourself in the morning.”
Bagging the goods
Back in October, Evy Rappaport, president of the Museum of Contemporary Art Special Projects Council, put herself on lists at three different stores for the Louis Vuitton Murakami bag with a cherry blossom print. “That’s the one thing I’ve always been prepared to wait for -- a handbag,” she said.
Last month, she got calls from the Rodeo Drive store and from Saks Fifth Avenue, each with a different shape bag available for her. “I couldn’t decide which to keep, so I kept them both,” Rappaport said. But now that there are 2,500 people on the waiting list for the bags, she joked, “Maybe I should put a price tag on them and walk down the street.”
Lisa Capozzi, vice president of merchandising for Louis Vuitton, denies that the shortage of the coated-canvas-and-leather bags, some of which combine Japanese anime-style characters with names such as “Onion Head” and “Flower Hat Man” with LV logos, is a PR stunt.
“These bags are pieces of art. They are made by hand, with 12 to 15 silk screens used to make each print. The process is very time-consuming. There could never be massive quantities,” she said, adding that there is even an embargo on Louis Vuitton employees purchasing the bags. “The demand is a wonderful problem to have, but it’s not our intention to make anyone frustrated.”
Still, even if they could produce a million Murakamis, it’s not likely they would. “The woman who carries Vuitton doesn’t want to see herself walking down the street,” Capozzi said. “We want to respect the specialness of the bags. It’s about balance.”
Louis Vuitton salespeople continue to take names even though they cannot tell customers when, or if, any more bags will arrive. “It’s always possible that someone high on the list will have a change of heart,” Capozzi said. Possible, but not likely, since she estimates it happens only 2% of the time.
The French leather goods company Hermes is so infamous for waiting lists, there was a “Sex and the City” episode devoted to the phenomenon. In the show, the character Samantha pretends to be getting a Birkin handbag for actress Lucy Liu so she can get to the top of the waiting list. Originally designed in 1984 for actress Jane Birkin, the bags cost $5,100 and up, and can be made in any color or skin. The waiting lists for both the Birkin and the Kelly bag, popularized by Grace Kelly in the 1950s, have been closed for three years.
An Hermes spokesman said the measure was taken so that production could catch up with demand. Each Hermes bag is handmade from start to finish by the same craftsman, a process that takes 18 hours. The firm won’t divulge how many bags are produced each year. (Last year, in a story for the New York Times, former Harper’s Bazaar editor Kate Betts multiplied the number of craftsmen Hermes employs by the number of hours they are allowed to work under French law, and concluded that at least 14,000 bags could be produced in a year. Which seems like an awful lot of $5,000 handbags.... Still, Hermes reps contend that the demand exceeds the supply.)
No money changes hands when a bag is ordered, and some customers, after waiting three or even four years, eventually give up. So, if Hermes ends up with an unwanted lime-green ostrich Birkin bag, for example, the next person on the list has first dibs.
Rappaport hit the jackpot this year. In addition to scoring two Murakami bags, the Hermes Kelly bags she ordered three years ago also arrived. “I wanted orange, cognac and black alligator, and they all came in,” she said happily.
But the waiting game leaves some shoppers feeling alienated. “I’d like to be on the list for a Birkin bag,” said Julie Kramer, a booking agent at Art Mix, an agency representing stylists. “But it seems kind of obnoxious.”
Jill Eisenstadt, a publicist, agrees. “I know the pain of the list,” she said. “I went on the list four years ago for a Birkin bag. Then I realized, either you have to take it upon yourself to call as many stores as possible that sell Hermes, that aren’t the Hermes boutique, and try to get one that way. Or you have to hoof it to the best resale or consignment store you can find. Otherwise, you will be bitter.”
Some celebrities were able to bypass the waiting list at Sigerson Morrison because the company gave away 60 pairs of flip-flops as a promotion for the new L.A. store. And, according to Miss Sixty’s Pollard, special arrangements were made so that Sevigny could receive her denim cargo pants before they arrived in stores. Alicia Keys, Rachel Griffiths and Claire Danes are still waiting. “We’re trying to get the pants to them as quickly as we can,” he said.
Hermes and Louis Vuitton claim to administer their waiting lists democratically, and representatives insist stars don’t get preferential treatment.
Celebrity exposure is enough to start a list. Last year, Jennifer Lopez wore the Manolo Blahnik “Okla Mod” boot, a kind of high-heeled Timberland style, in her “Jenny From the Block” video, prompting a list of hundreds in New York and L.A. And when Monica Lewinsky appeared on 20/20 in 1999 wearing Glaze lipstick by Club Monaco, it spawned waiting lists for the dark berry shade, which is still one of the store’s most popular.
Although most fashion insiders agree waiting lists seem more prevalent now, they are not new. In 2001, Louis Vuitton’s graffiti bags designed by Stephen Sprouse were next to impossible to get. At various times, there have also been lists for Fendi baguettes, Balenciaga cargo pants, Yves Saint Laurent lace-front blouses, Gucci’s iridescent patent leather boots and Creme de la Mer face cream.
These days, most lists are for luxury handbags, which is a segment of the apparel business that is doing well, according to NPD’s Cohen. “It’s always going to be for an item that is overpriced but is a statement piece,” said the industry analyst.
Still, there is a limit to what consumers will take. As Cohen put it: “If you never win the lottery, eventually you’ll stop playing.”
